My iPhone for Seniors, Second Edition (2016)
14. Working with Photos and Video You Take with Your iPhone
In this chapter, you’ll explore all the photo and video functionality that your iPhone has to offer. Topics include the following:
Getting started
Setting your Photos & Camera preferences
Taking photos and video with your iPhone
Viewing, editing, and working with photos on your iPhone
Viewing, editing, and working with video on your iPhone
Using AirPlay to view photos and videos on a TV
Using iCloud with your photos
The iPhone’s cameras and Camera app capture high quality photos and video. Because you’ll likely have your iPhone with you at all times, it’s handy to capture photos with it whenever and wherever you are. And, you can capture video just as easily.
Whether you’ve taken photos and video on your iPhone or added them from another source, the Photos app enables you to edit, view, organize, and share your photos. You’ll likely find that taking and working with photos and videos are among the most useful things your iPhone can do.
Getting Started
An iPhone has lots of capabilities when it comes to taking and working with photos and videos. In fact, there are so many capabilities they can seem overwhelming. The good news is that you can do basic things such as taking photos or videos very simply and learn to use the more advanced features, such as editing and sharing your photos, over time.
Each generation of iPhone has had different photo and video capabilities and features. The current versions sport high-quality cameras, and in fact, there is a camera on each side of the iPhone. Current generations also have a flash; the ability to zoom; take burst, panoramic, and time-lapse photos; and other features you expect from a quality digital camera. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus models can also take Live Photos, which capture a small amount of video along with the photo.
The iPhone’s photo and video capabilities and features are probably the largest area of differences between the various models. Because the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are the most advanced models, they are the focus of this chapter. If you have a different model, some of the tasks described might not be applicable to you, or some of the details in this chapter might be different than what you see on your iPhone.
Additionally, the iPhone’s photo and video capabilities have been increasingly tied into iCloud. For example, you can store your entire photo library under your iCloud account; this offers many benefits including backing up all your photos, making it easy to access your photos from any device, and being able to quickly share your photos with others. Therefore, I’ve assumed you are using iCloud and have configured it to work with photos as described in Chapter 3, “Setting Up and Using iCloud and Other Online Accounts.” Like differences in iPhone camera capabilities, if you don’t use iCloud with your photos, some of the information in this chapter doesn’t apply to you and what you see on your phone might look different than what you see in this chapter.
Setting Your Photos & Camera Preferences
You can use the iPhone’s cameras and Photo app “out of the box” without making any changes to the related settings. However, you might want to make some changes to these settings as you learn more about this part of your iPhone.
To make changes to Photos & Camera settings, you can use the following example steps that show you how to change the quality (and thus file size) of the video you take with your iPhone along with the subsequent table that provides a description of the other Photos & Camera settings.
To change the quality and file size of video you take, perform the following steps:
Tap Settings on the Home screen.
Swipe up the screen.
Tap Photos & Camera.
Swipe up the screen.
Tap Record Video.
Tap the option you want to use for your videos; the options you see depend on the model of iPhone you are using. This example shows the options on an iPhone 6s.
The first part of the option is the resolution (the amount of detail) of the images in the video, such as 720p HD or 1080p HD (the p stands for progressive scan while the HD stands for High Definition in case you were wondering). The higher the resolution, the better quality the image will be and the larger the file size is; the larger the file size is, the more storage space each video takes up on your iPhone.
The second part of the option is the frame rate of the video (in fps or frames per second). The faster the frame rate, the smoother the resulting video plays. Like resolution, video captured with higher frame rates is better and the corresponding files are larger.
In most cases, the 1080p HD at 30 fps is a good choice because the resulting video has very good quality without the file sizes being too large. If space on your iPhone is hard to come by, choose a lower resolution and frame rate. If quality is the most important factor to you, choose a higher resolution and frame rate.
Tap Photos & Camera. When you take video, it is captured with the options you selected in step 6. You can change other Photos & Camera settings using a similar pattern and the description of the options in the following table.
Photos & Camera Settings
Taking Photos and Video with Your iPhone
You use the Camera app to take photos and video with your iPhone. This app has a number of controls and features. Some features are easy to spot while others aren’t so obvious. By the end of this section, you’ll know how to use these features to take great photos and video with your iPhone.
The general process for capturing photos or video is:
Choose the type of photo or video you want to capture.
Set the options for the type of photo or video you selected.
Take the photos or video.
View and edit the photos or video you captured.
The information you need to accomplish the steps in this process is provided in tables and tasks throughout this chapter.
The first step is to choose the type of photo or video that you want to capture. You do this by swiping to the left or right (up or down if you are holding the iPhone horizontally) on the selection bar located near the large shutter button on the Camera app’s screen. The option shown in yellow at the center of the screen is the current type of photo or video you will capture. The options available in the Camera app are explained in the following table.
Types of Photo and Video iPhones Can Capture
When you choose the type of photo or video you want to take, there are quite a few options you can select (the options available to you depend on the specific model of iPhone you are using). When you select options, the icons you see on the screen change to reflect your selection. For example, when you choose a self-timed photo, the Self-Timer icon changes to show the time delay you have selected. And, not all options are available at the same time. For example, you can’t set the flash and HDR to on at the same time because you can’t take HDR images with the flash.
The following table describes the icons and tools available on the Camera app’s screen. (Remember that the specific icons and tools you see depend on the type of photo or video you are capturing and the model of iPhone you are using.)
Photo and Video Options and Icons
And Now a Few Words on Live Photos (iPhone 6s and 6s Plus)
The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus can capture Live Photos. A Live Photo is a static image, but it also has a few of what Apple calls “moments” of video around the static image that you take. To capture a Live Photo, you set the Live function to be on (the icon is yellow) and take the photo as you normally would. When you are viewing a Live Photo you have taken, tap and hold on the photo to see the motion associated with that photo. When you aren’t tapping and holding on a Live Photo, it looks like any other photo you’ve taken.
Taking Photos
You can use the Camera app to capture photos, like so:
On the Home screen, tap Camera.
To capture a horizontal photo, rotate your iPhone so that it’s horizontal; of course, you can use either orientation to take photos just as you can with any other camera.
Swipe up or down (right or left if the phone is vertical) on the selection bar until PHOTO is in the center and in yellow.
If you want to change the camera you are using, tap the Change Camera button. When you change the camera, the image briefly freezes, and then the view changes to the other camera. On some iPhone models, the front camera (the one facing you when you look at the screen) has fewer features than the back camera. For example, you can’t zoom when using the front camera.
Set the Flash, HDR, Live, and Self-timer options you want to use for the photo; see the previous table for an explanation of these options you can use and how they work.
Frame the image by moving and adjusting the iPhone’s distance and angle to the object you are photographing; if you have the Grid turned on, you can use its lines to help you frame the image the way you want it. When you stop moving the phone, the Camera app indicates the part of the image that is used to set focus, brightness, and exposure with the yellow box. If this is the most important part of the image, you are good to go. If not, you can set this point manually by tapping where you want the focus to be (see step 9).
To zoom in, unpinch on the image. The camera zooms in on the subject and the Zoom slider appears.
Unpinch on the image or drag the slider toward the + to zoom in or pinch on the image or drag the slider toward the – to zoom out to change the level of zoom until it’s what you want to use.
Tap the screen to manually set the area of the image to be used for setting the focus and exposure. The yellow focus box appears where you tapped.
To change the exposure, swipe up on the sun icon to increase the brightness or down to decrease it.
Continue making adjustments in the framing of the image, the zoom, focus point, and brightness until it is the image you want to take.
Tap the Shutter button on the screen, or either Volume button on the side of the iPhone. The Photo app captures the photo, and the shutter closes briefly while the photo is recorded. When the shutter opens again, you’re ready to take the next photo.
To see the photo you most recently captured, tap the Thumbnail button to view it.
Use the photo-viewing tools to view the photo (see “Viewing, Editing, and Working with Photos on Your iPhone” later in this chapter for the details).
To delete a photo, tap the Trash icon, and then tap Delete Photo.
To Edit the photo, tap the Edit button and use the resulting editing tools to make changes to it (see “Viewing, Editing, and Working with Photos on Your iPhone” later in this chapter for the details).
Tap Done. You move back into the Camera app, and can take more photos.
Taking Panoramic Photos
The Camera app can take panoramic photos by capturing a series of images as you pan the camera across a scene, and then “stitching” those images together into one panoramic image. To take a panoramic photo, perform the following steps:
Open the Camera app.
Swipe on the selection bar until PANO is selected. On the screen, you see a bar representing the entire image that contains a smaller box representing the current part of the image that will be captured.
Tap the Shutter button. The app begins capturing the image.
Slowly sweep the iPhone to the right while keeping the arrow centered on the line on the screen (if you move the phone too fast, you see a message on the screen telling you to slow down). The better you keep the tip of the arrow aligned with the line, the more consistent the centerline of the resulting image will be.
When you’ve moved to the “end” of the image you are capturing or the limit of what you can capture in the photo, tap the Shutter button and the process stops. You move back to the starting point and the panoramic photo is created. You can tap the image’s thumbnail to view, delete, or edit it as described in the previous task.
Taking Video
You can capture video as easily as you can still images. Here’s how.
Move into the Camera app.
To capture horizontal video, rotate the iPhone so that it’s horizontal; of course, you can use either orientation to take video just as you can with any other video camera.
Swipe on the selection bar until VIDEO is selected.
Choose the camera on the back of the iPhone or the one facing you, configure the flash, or zoom in, just like setting up a still image. (The Self-timer, grid, and HDR mode are not available when taking video.)
Tap on the screen where you want to focus.
If needed, adjust the exposure by sliding the sun icon up or down.
To start recording, tap the Shutter button. You hear the start/stop recording tone and the app starts capturing video; you see the timer on the screen showing how long you’ve been recording.
To take still images while you take video, tap the white Shutter button.
To stop recording, tap the red Shutter button again. Also, like still images, you can then tap the video’s thumbnail to preview it. You can use the Photos app’s video tools to view or edit the clip. (See “Viewing, Editing, and Working with Video on Your iPhone” later in this chapter for the details.)
Taking Photos and Video from the Lock Screen
Because it is likely to be with you constantly, your iPhone is a great camera of opportunity. You can use its Quick Access feature to quickly take photos when your iPhone is asleep/locked. Here’s how:
When the iPhone is locked, press the Touch ID/Home button. The Lock screen appears.
Swipe up on the camera icon. The Camera app opens. (If you don’t swipe far enough up the screen, the Lock screen “drops” down again. Swipe almost all the way up the screen to open the Camera app. It also opens more easily if you give the icon a quick flick up.)
Use the Camera app to take the photo or video as described in the previous tasks. You can only view the most recent photos or videos you captured from within the Camera app. Move to the Photos app to see more.
Taking Photos and Video from the Control Center
You can get to the camera quickly using the Control Center, too.
Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the Control Center.
Tap the Camera button. The Camera app opens.
Use the Camera app to take photos or video as you’ve learned in the previous tasks.
Taking Photos with Quick Actions (iPhone 6s, 6s Plus Only)
New! On an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, the Quick Access menu offers a selection of photos and video commands that you can choose right from a Home screen.
Tap and hold on the Camera icon until the Quick Actions menu opens.
Tap the type of photo or video you want to take. The Camera app opens and is set up for the type you selected.
Use the Camera app to capture the photo or video.
>>>Go Further: More on Taking Photos and Video
The Photos app enables you to do all sorts of interesting and fun things with photos and video. Following are some additional pointers that help you make the most of this great app:
• Set Once. You only need to set the Flash, HDR, and other options when you want to change the current settings because these settings are retained even after you move out of the Camera app and back into it.
• HDR. The High Dynamic Range (HDR) feature causes the iPhone to take three shots of each image with each shot having a different exposure level. It then combines the three images into one higher-quality image. HDR works best for photos that don’t have motion and where there is good lighting. (You can’t use the iPhone’s flash with HDR images.) Also, HDR photos take longer to capture.
When the Keep Normal Photo switch in the Photos & Camera Settings is on, you see two versions of each HDR photo in the Photos app: One is the HDR version, and the other is the normal version. If you prefer the HDR versions, set the Keep Normal Photo switch to off so that your photos don’t use as much space on your iPhone, and you don’t have twice as many photos to deal with.
• Location. The first time you use the Camera app, you are prompted to decide whether or not you allow it to use Location Services. If you allow the Camera app to use Location Services, the app uses the iPhone’s GPS to tag the location where photos and video were captured. Some apps can use this information, such as the Photos app on your iPhone, to locate your photos on maps, find photos by their locations, and so on.
• Sensitivity. The iPhone’s camera is sensitive to movement, so if your hand moves while you are taking a photo, it’s likely to be blurry. Sometimes, part of the image will be in focus while part of it isn’t, so be sure to check the view before you capture a photo. This is especially true when you zoom in. If you are getting blurry photos, the problem is probably your hand moving while you are taking them. Of course, since it’s digital, you can take as many photos as you need to get it right; you’ll want to delete the rejects (you learn how later) periodically, so you don’t have to waste storage room or clutter up the Photos app with them.
• Burst Photos. When you press and hold on the Shutter button while taking photos, a series of images are captured rapidly and you see a counter showing the number being taken. When you release the Shutter button, a burst photo is created; the burst photo contains all of the images you captured, but appears as a single image in the Photos app. You can review the images in the burst and choose to keep only the images you want to save (this task is covered later in this chapter).
• Self-timer. When you set the Self-timer option, you choose either a 3- or 10-second delay between when you tap the Shutter button and when the image is captured. Like the other settings, the Self-timer is persistent so you need to turn it off again when you want to stop using it.
• Self-timer and Burst. If you set the timer, and then tap and hold on the Shutter button for a second or so, a burst of ten photos is captured when the timer expires.
• Slow-motion Video. You can also take slow-motion video. Choose SLO-MO on the selection bar. Set up the shot and take the video as you do with normal speed video. When you play it back, the video plays in slow motion except for the very beginning and ending. (The speed of the video is determined by the Record Slo-mo setting, described earlier.)
• Time-lapse Video. When you choose the TIME-LAPSE option, you can set the focus and exposure level and choose the camera you want to use. You record the video just like “real time” video. When you play it back, the video plays back rapidly so you seemingly compress time.
• Screenshots. You can take screenshots of your iPhone’s screen by pressing and holding the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons at the same time. The screen flashes white and the shutter sound plays to indicate the screen has been captured. The resulting image is stored in the Recently Added album. You can view the screen captures you take, email them, send them via Messages, or other tasks as you can with photos you take with the iPhone’s camera.
Viewing, Editing, and Working with Photos on Your iPhone
After you’ve loaded your iPhone with photos, you can use the Photos app to view them individually and as slideshows. You can also edit your photos and use them in a number of tasks, such as sharing your photos via AirDrop or email.
Finding Photos to Work With by Browsing
The first step in viewing, editing, or doing other tasks with photos is finding the photos you want to work with. When you open the Photos app, you see three ways to access your photos: Photos, Shared, and Albums. You can browse these sources to find photos in which you are interested.
The Photos source organizes your photos with groupings of photos by date and location. The top level is Years, which shows your photos grouped by the year in which they were taken. You can then “drill down” into a year where you find collections, under which photos are organized by location and date ranges, which are determined according to the time, date, and location information on your photos. When you tap one of these collections, you drill down and see moments, which show you the detail of a collection. At the moment level, you see and can work with the individual photos in the collection.
Shared shows photos you are sharing with other people and photos other people are sharing with you. For each group of photos being shared, you see the name of the group and who is sharing it (you, for photos you are sharing, or the name of the person sharing with you). When you tap a shared group, you see the photos it contains and can work with them. (Working with photo sharing is covered in detail in “Using iCloud with Your Photos” later in this chapter.)
Albums allow you to organize your photos in a number of ways. Following are some of the albums or types of albums you might see:
• All Photos or Camera Roll. When you see the All Photos album, you have the iCloud Photo Library enabled so that you can use this album to see all the photos in your library. When this is not enabled, you see Camera Roll instead. In either situation, this album contains photos and videos you’ve taken with the iPhone’s camera or saved from other apps, such as attachments to email in Mail.
• Favorites. This folder contains images you have tagged as a favorite by tapping their Heart button.
• Selfies. Photos you take with the front-facing camera are stored here.
• Panoramas, Videos, Slo-mo, Time-lapse, Bursts, and Screenshots. These folders contain photos and videos of the types for which they are named. For example, to get to the videos you have taken, open the Videos album.
• Albums you create. Later in this chapter, you learn how to create albums for your photos. Albums that you’ve created on your iPhone are indicated by just having the name you give them.
Your Albums May Vary
Some apps, such as Instagram, might add their own albums to the Albums tab.
While each of these sources looks a bit different, the steps to browse them to find the photos you want to work with are similar for all three sources; this example shows using the Photos source to browse for photos:
On the Home screen, tap Photos.
Tap Photos. On the Years screen, you see photos collected by the year in which they were taken. Next to the year, you see a summary of the various locations where the photos were taken.
Start at the Beginning
If the title at the top of the screen isn’t “Years,” tap the back button located in the upper-left corner of the screen until it is.
Swipe up and down the screen to browse all the years.
Tap the thumbnails in the year that contains photos you want to work with. You move to the Collections screen that groups the selected year’s photos based on locations and time periods.
Straight to the Map
If you want to jump directly to the map view of a group of photos, tap the heading for the period in which you are interested instead of the thumbnails it contains.
Swipe up and down the screen to browse all the collections in the year you selected.
Tap the collection that contains photos you want to see. Doing so opens the Moments screen, which breaks out the photos in the collection by location and date.
Swipe up and down the screen to browse all the moments in the collection you selected.
To see the photos in the moment based on their location, tap the moment’s heading. You see a map with photos collected at the various locations.
No Map Required
If you don’t want to see photos in a moment shown on the map, just tap any photo in a moment to start browsing that moment’s photos.
Zoom in by unpinching your fingers on the map to get more detail. As you zoom, the locations of photos become more specific.
Tap the location that contains photos you want to see. You see a thumbnail of each photo at that location.
You’re ready to view the photos in the group and can move to the next task.
Go Back
You can move back to the screens from where you came by tapping the back button, which is always located in the upper-left corner of the screen; this button is named with the screen it takes you back to. To choose a different source, you might have to tap the back button several times as the Photos, Shared, and Albums buttons at the bottom of the screen are only visible on the opening screen of the Photos app.
Finding Photos to Work With by Searching
Browsing photos can be a fun way to find photos, but at times you might want to get to specific photos more quickly. You can use the Search tool to get to photos quickly.
Continuing in the Photos app, tap the magnifying glass.
Type your search term. This can be any information associated with your photos, such as a date or location. As you type, collections of photos that match your search criteria are listed under the Search bar. The more specific you make your search term, the smaller the set of photos that will be found.
Tap the results you want to explore.
Browse the results to find the photo you want.
Tap Cancel to clear the search.
Using 3D Touch with Photos (iPhone 6s, 6s Plus Only)
New! You can use 3D Touch to preview and open photos as follows:
Browse a collection of photos in the Photos app.
Tap and hold on a photo in which you are interested. A Peek of that photo appears.
To open the photo, press down slightly harder until it pops open and use the steps in the previous task to view it (if you pop the photo open, skip the rest of these steps).
To see actions you can perform on the photo preview, swipe up the image.
Tap the action you want to perform, such as Favorite, to tag the photo as a favorite.
Viewing Photos in Slideshows
You can view photos in slideshows as the following steps demonstrate:
Using the skills you learned in the previous task, select and view the photo in a group of photos that you want to be the first one in the slideshow.
Tap the Share button.
It’s Not All Good
When you select a photo and tap the Share button, the app indicates that one photo is selected, which is true. However, when you play the slideshow, all the photos in the group are shown. The one you selected is just the first one displayed. This is a bit confusing, but as it appears to have no bearing on what plays in the slideshow, you can safely ignore the information about how many photos are selected. If you want to choose the photos that are shown, create an album containing only those photos and view that in a slideshow instead.
Tap Slideshow. The slideshow begins to play.
You can watch the slideshow with the current options, in which case, skip to step 14, or if you want to configure slideshow options, tap the screen.
Tap Options.
Tap Theme. The theme determines how the images are displayed on the screen.
Tap the theme you want to use in the slideshow.
Tap Music.
Tap the theme music you want to use or tap iTunes Music and then use the Select Music tool to choose the music you want to play during the slideshow.
To have the slideshow repeat until you stop it manually, set the Repeat switch to on (green).
Drag the slider to the left to slow down the speed of the slideshow or to the right to increase it.
Tap Done. You return to the slideshow, and it plays with the options you selected.
To hide the controls, tap the screen.
To stop the show before it finishes, tap the screen.
To pause the show, tap the Play/Pause button.
To exit the slideshow, tap Done.
Working with Burst Mode Photos
When you use the Burst mode to take photos, the Camera app rapidly takes a series of photos. (Typically, you use Burst mode to capture motion, where the action is happening too quickly to be able to frame and take individual photos.) You can review the photos taken in Burst mode and save any you want to keep as favorites; your favorites become separate photos just like those you take one at a time. Here’s how:
View a Burst mode photo. Burst mode photos are indicated by the word Burst and the number of photos in the burst. (You can see all of the burst photos on your phone by opening the Bursts album.)
Tap Select. The burst is expanded. At the bottom of the screen, you see thumbnails for the photos in the burst. At the top part of the screen, you see thumbnails of the photos; the photo in the center of the previews is marked with a downward-facing arrow. Photos marked with a dot are “suggested photos,” meaning the best ones in the series according to the Photos app.
Swipe all the way to the right to move to the first photo in the series; swiping on the thumbnails at the bottom flips through them faster.
Tap a photo that you want to save. It is marked with a check mark.
Swipe to the left to move through the series.
Tap each photo you want to save.
Continue reviewing and selecting photos until you’ve gone through the entire series.
Tap Done.
Tap Keep Only X Favorites, where X is the number of photos you selected or tap Keep Everything to keep all the photos in the burst. Each photo you keep becomes a separate, individual photo; you can work with these just like photos you take individually.
Burst Mode Photos and Uploads to the Cloud
If the Upload Burst Photos switch is set to off, burst photos are not uploaded to the cloud until you go through the steps to select and save photos from a burst. The photos you selected to keep are then uploaded to the cloud just like individual photos you take.
Editing Photos
Even though the iPhone has great photo-taking capabilities, not all the photos you take are perfect from the start. Fortunately, you can use the Photos app to edit your photos. The following tools are available to you:
• Enhance. This tool attempts to automatically adjust the colors and other properties of the photos to make them better.
• Straighten, rotate, and crop. You can rotate your photos to change their orientation and crop out the parts of photos you don’t want to keep. You can also have the Photos app do this with the tap of a button.
• Filters. You can apply different filters to your photos for artistic or other purposes.
• Remove red-eye. This one helps you remove that certain demon-possessed look from the eyes of people in your photos.
• Smart adjustments. You can adjust the light, color, and even the black and white properties of your photos.
Enhancing Photos
To improve the quality of a photo, use the Enhance tool.
View the image you want to enhance.
Tap Edit.
Tap the Enhance button. The image is enhanced and the Enhance button turns blue.
If you don’t like the enhancements, tap the Enhance button again to remove the enhancements.
To save the enhanced image, tap Done.
Straightening, Rotating, and Cropping Photos
To change the orientation of a photo, use the Rotate tool.
View the image you want to rotate.
Tap Edit.
Tap the Crop button. The Photos app attempts to straighten and crop the photo automatically.
If you are satisfied with how the photo is straightened and cropped, tap Done and skip the rest of these steps. If not, continue to the next step.
To undo the automatic straighten and crop, tap RESET.
To rotate the image, tap the Rotate button. Each time you tap this button, the image rotates 90 degrees.
To straighten the image, drag the triangle to the left or right to rotate the image.
When the image is straightened, remove your finger. The dial shows how much you’ve rotated the image.
To crop the image proportionally, tap the Constrain button; to crop the image without staying to a specific proportion, skip to step 11.
Tap the proportion with which you want to crop the image. You use this to configure the image for how you intend to display it. For example, if you want to display it on a 16:9 TV, you might want to constrain the cropping to that proportion so the image matches the display device.
Drag the corners of the crop box until the part of the image you want to keep is shown in the box.
Drag on the image to move it around inside the crop box.
When the image is cropped and positioned as you want it to be, tap Done. The edited image is saved.
More on Straightening and Cropping Photos
To undo changes you’ve made, tap the RESET button and the photo returns to the state it was in before you started editing it. To have the app automatically straighten and crop the photo again, tap AUTO. To exit the Edit mode without saving your changes, tap Cancel.
Applying Filters to Photos
To apply filters to photos, do the following:
View the image to which you want to apply filters.
Tap Edit.
Tap the Filters button. The palette of filters appears.
Swipe to the left or right on the palette to browse all of the filters.
Tap the filter you want to apply. The filter is applied to the image and you see a preview of the image as it will be with the filter; the filter currently applied is highlighted with a blue box. Keep trying filters until the image is what you want it to be.
Tap Done. The photo with the filter applied is saved.
Undoing What You’ve Done
To restore a photo to its unedited state, tap Revert, which appears when you edit a photo that you previously edited and saved. At the prompt, tap Revert to Original and the photo is restored to its “like new” condition.
Removing Red-Eye from Photos
When you edit a photo with people in it, the Red-eye tool becomes available (if no faces are recognized, this tool is hidden). To remove red-eye, perform the following steps:
View an image with people that have red-eye.
Tap Edit.
Tap the Red-eye button.
Zoom in on the eyes from which you want to remove red-eye.
Tap each eye containing red-eye. The red in the eyes you tap is removed.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you’ve removed all the red-eye.
Tap Done.
Making Smart Adjustments to Photos
You can edit your photos using the Photos app’s Smart Adjustment tools. Using these tools, you can change various characteristics related to light, color, and black and white aspects of your photos.
View the image you want to adjust.
Tap Edit.
Tap the Smart Adjust button.
Tap the area you want to adjust, such as Color.
Get Straight to the Point
To jump directly to a specific aspect of the area you are adjusting, tap the downward-facing arrow along the right side of the screen. On the resulting menu, tap the aspect you want to adjust. For example, if you open this menu for Color, you tap Saturation, Contrast, or Cast to adjust those factors.
Swipe to the left or right to change the level of the parameter you are adjusting. As you make changes, you see the results of the change on the image.
When you’re done adjusting the first attribute you selected, tap the List button.
Tap one of the options under the attribute you are already working with to adjust it; or tap the downward-facing arrow under one of the other attributes, and then tap the characteristic you want to change.
Swipe to the left or right to change the level of the parameter you are adjusting. As you make changes, you see the results of the change on the image.
Repeat steps 6 through 8 until you’ve made all the adjustments you want to make.
Tap Done to save the adjusted image.
Working with Photos
Once you have photos on your iPhone, there are a lot of things you can do with them, including:
• Emailing one or more photos to one or more people (see the next task).
• Sending a photo via a text message (see Chapter 10, “Sending, Receiving, and Managing Texts and iMessages”).
• Sharing photos via AirDrop.
• Sharing photos with others via Photo Stream (covered later in this chapter).
• Posting your photos on your Facebook wall or timeline.
• Assigning photos to contacts (see Chapter 7, “Managing Contacts”).
• Using photos as wallpaper (see Chapter 4, “Configuring an iPhone to Suit Your Preferences”).
• Sharing photos via tweets.
• Printing photos (see Chapter 1, “Getting Started with Your iPhone”).
• Deleting photos (covered later).
• Organizing photos in albums (also covered later).
Copy ‘Em
If you select one or more photos and tap the Copy button, the images you selected are copied to the iPhone’s clipboard. You can then move into another application and paste them in.
You’ll easily be able to accomplish any actions on your own that are not covered in detail here once you’ve performed a couple of those that are demonstrated in the following tasks.
Individual versus Groups
Some actions are only available when you are working with an individual photo. For example, you can send only a single photo via Twitter whereas you can email multiple photos at the same time. Any commands that aren’t applicable to the photos that are selected won’t appear on the screen.
Sharing Photos via Email
You can email photos via iPhone’s Mail application starting from the Photos app.
View the source containing one or more images that you want to share.
Tap Select.
Select the photos you want to send by tapping them. When you tap a photo, it is marked with a check mark to show you that it is selected.
Tap the Share button.
Too Many?
If the photos you have selected are too much for email, the Mail button won’t appear. You need to select fewer photos to attach to the email message.
Tap Mail. A new email message is created, and the photos are added as attachments.
Use the email tools to address the email, add a subject, type the body, and send it. (See Chapter 9, “Sending, Receiving, and Managing Email,” for detailed information about using your iPhone’s email tools.)
Tap the size of the images you want to send. Choosing a smaller size makes the files smaller and reduces the quality of the photos. You should generally try to keep the size of emails to 5MB or less to ensure the message makes it to the recipient. (Some email servers block larger messages.) After you send the email, you move back to the photos you were browsing.
Images from Email
As you learned in Chapter 9, when you save images attached to email that you receive, they are stored in the All Photos or Camera Roll photo album just like photos you take with your iPhone.
Organizing Photos in a New Album
You can create photo albums and store photos in them to keep your photos organized.
To create a new album, perform these steps:
Move to the Albums screen by tapping Albums on the toolbar.
Tap the Add button (+).
Type the name of the new album.
Tap Save. You’re prompted to select photos to add to the new album.
Move to the source of the photos you want to add to the new album.
Swipe up and down to browse the source and tap the photos you want to add to the album. They are marked with a check mark to show that they are selected. The number of photos selected is shown at the top of the screen.
Tap Done. The photos are added to the new album and you move back to the Albums screen. The new album is shown on the list, and you can work with it just like the other albums you see.
Playing Favorites
To mark any photo or video as a favorite, tap the Heart button. It fills in with blue to show you that the item you are viewing is a favorite. Favorites are automatically collected in the Favorites album so this is an easy way to collect photos and videos you want to be able to easily find again without having to create a new album or even put them in an album. You can unmark a photo or video as a favorite by tapping the Heart button again.
Adding Photos to an Existing Album
To add photos to an existing album, follow these steps:
Move to the source containing the photos you want to add to an album.
Tap Select.
Tap the photos you want to add to the album.
Tap Add To. You move to the Albums screen.
Swipe up and down the list to find the album to which you want to add the photos.
Tap the album (if an album is grayed out and you can’t tap it, that album was not created on the iPhone and so you can’t change its contents). The selected photos are added to the album.
More Album Fun
You can change the order in which albums are listed on the Albums screen. Move to the Albums screen and tap Edit. Tap the Unlock button next to the albums you want to move, and then drag albums up or down by their List buttons. Likewise, you can delete an album that you created in the Photos app. Move to the Albums screen and tap Edit. Tap the Unlock button for the album you want to delete, tap Delete, and then tap Delete Album. When you’re done making changes to your Albums, tap Done. To remove a photo from an album, view the photo, tap the Trash button, and then tap Remove from Album. Photos you remove from an album remain in the Recently Added album and in your library; they are only deleted from the album.
Deleting Photos
You can delete photos and videos that you don’t want to keep on your iPhone. If you use the iCloud Photo Library, deleting the photos from your phone also deletes them from your photo library and from all the other devices using your library. So, make sure you really don’t want photos any more before you delete them.
Open the source containing photos you want to delete.
Tap Select.
Tap the photos you want to delete. Each item you select is marked with a check mark.
Tap the Trash button.
Tap Delete X Photos, where X is the number of photos you selected. The photos you selected are deleted.
Deleting Individual Photos
You can delete individual photos that you are viewing by tapping the Trash button, and then tapping Delete Photo.
Viewing, Editing, and Working with Video on Your iPhone
As shown previously in this chapter, you can capture video clips with your iPhone. Once captured, you can view clips on your iPhone, edit them, and share them.
Finding and Watching Videos
Watching videos you’ve captured with your iPhone is simple.
Move to the Albums screen.
Tap the Videos album. Video clips have a camera icon and running time at the bottom of their icons.
Swipe up and down the screen to browse your videos.
Tap the video you want to watch.
Rotate the phone to change its orientation if necessary.
Tap Play. The video plays. After a few moments, the toolbars disappear.
Tap the video. The toolbars reappear.
Deleting Video
To remove a video clip from your iPhone, view it, tap the Trash button, and then tap Delete Video at the prompt.
To pause the video, tap the Pause button.
To jump to a specific point in a video, swipe to the left or right on the thumbnails at the bottom of the screen. When you swipe to the left, you move ahead in the video; when you swipe to the right, you move back in the video.
Watching Slow-Motion and Time-Lapse Video
Watching slow-motion video is just like watching regular speed video except after a few frames, the video slows down until a few frames before the end at which point it speeds up again. Watching time-lapse is similar except the video plays faster instead of slower than real time.
Editing Video
You can trim a video clip to remove unwanted parts. Here’s how you do it:
View the video you want to edit.
Tap Edit. If the video isn’t stored on your phone, it is downloaded. When that process is complete, you can edit it.
Drag the left trim marker to where you want the edited clip to start; the trim marker is the left-facing arrow at the left end of the timeline. If you hold your finger in one place for a few seconds, the thumbnails expand so your placement of the crop marker can be more precise. As soon as you move the trim marker, the part of the clip that is inside the selection is highlighted in the yellow box; the Trim button also appears.
Drag the right trim marker to where you want the edited clip to end.
Tap Done.
Tap Save as New Clip to save the trimmed clip as a new clip or Cancel to leave the clip as it was. When you save it as a new clip, the frames outside the crop markers are removed from the clip and it is added to your library as a new clip.
There’s an App for That
For more powerful video editing on your iPhone, download the iMovie app. This app provides a much more powerful video editor. You can use themes to design a video, add music, include titles and photos, and much more.
>>>Go Further: Sharing Video
There are lots of ways to share your videos. View the video you want to share. Tap the Share button. Tap Next. Tap how you want to share the video. There are a number of options including Messages, Mail, iCloud, iCloud Photo Sharing, YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo. Follow the onscreen prompts to complete the sharing process.
Using AirPlay to View Photos and Videos on a TV
Viewing photos and slideshows on the iPhone’s screen is good, but seeing them on a big screen is even better. If you have an Apple TV connected to a home theater system, you can stream your photos and videos so that you can see them on your TV and hear their soundtracks via the system’s audio components.
After your Apple TV is configured, your iPhone needs to be on the same network as the Apple TV so the two devices can communicate.
To view photos on your TV, do the following:
View a photo in the source containing the photos you want to stream.
Tap the Share button.
Tap AirPlay.
Tap Apple TV. The photo is streamed to the TV and you return to the photo on the iPhone; at the top of the screen, you see a blue bar indicating you are streaming. You can swipe to the left or right to move to the previous or next photo and use the other viewing tools you learned about earlier. You see the same image on the iPhone and on the TV (at very different sizes of course!).
To stop streaming, tap the AirPlay button.
Tap Turn off AirPlay.
Previously in this chapter, you learned how to view photos in a slideshow. You can also stream a slideshow through an Apple TV by tapping the Share button and then tapping Apple TV. Start the slideshow as you learned earlier. You see the images on the TV and hear its music on the audio device connected to the Apple TV. On the iPhone, you see the screen indicating the slideshow is being streamed. To stop the slideshow, tap the Pause button on the iPhone’s screen. Exit AirPlay mode by tapping the AirPlay button and then tapping Turn off AirPlay.
Similarly, you can stream videos to an Apple TV using the same process. View the video you want to stream. Tap the Share button and tap AirPlay. Tap Apple TV. The video plays on the device connected to the Apple TV. You can control the video using the controls on the iPhone’s screen.
To turn streaming off, open the AirPlay menu and tap iPhone.
Using iCloud with Your Photos
With iCloud, your devices can automatically upload photos to your iCloud account on the Internet. Other devices can automatically download photos from iCloud, so you have your photos available on all your devices at the same time. Using iCloud with your photos has two sides: a sender and receiver. Your iPhone can be both. Photo applications can also access your photos and download them to your computer automatically. Windows PCs can also be configured to automatically download photos from the cloud.
In addition to backing up your photos and having all your photos available to you, you can also share your photos and videos with others and view photos and videos being shared with you.
Sharing Your Photos
You can share your photos with others by creating a shared album. This is a great way to share photos, because others can subscribe to your shared albums to view and work with the photos you share. When you share photos, you can add them to an album that’s already being shared or create a new shared album.
To create a new, empty, shared album, do the following:
Open the Shared source. You see the iCloud Photo Sharing screen that lists the shared albums in which you are currently participating (as either the person sharing them or subscribed to them).
Tap the Add (+) button.
Type the title of the new album.
Tap Next.
Enter or select the email address of the first person with whom you want to share the photos.
Add other recipients until you’ve added everyone you want to access the photos.
Tap Create. The shared album is created and is ready for you to add photos. The recipients you included in the new album receive notifications that invite them to join the album.
Adding Photos to a Shared Album
To add photos to an album you are sharing, perform the following steps:
Move to the source containing photos you want to add to a shared album.
Tap Select.
Tap the photos you want to share.
Tap the Share button.
Tap iCloud Photo Sharing.
Enter your commentary about the photos you are sharing. (Note, this commentary is associated only with the first photo.)
Tap Shared Album.
Swipe up and down to browse the list of shared albums available.
Tap the album to which you want to add the photos.
New Shared Album with Photos
You can create a new shared album with the selected photos by tapping New Shared Album.
Tap iCloud.
Tap Post. The photos you selected are added to the shared album. People who are subscribed to the album receive a notification that photos have been added and can view the new photos along with your commentary.
iCloud Account Required
The people with whom you share photos must have an iCloud account.
>>>Go Further: More on iCloud Photo Sharing
Following are a few more pointers to help you use iCloud photo sharing:
• You can add comments to photos you are sharing. Open the shared album and tap the photo to which you want to add comments. Tap Add a comment. Type your comment and tap Send. People with whom you are sharing the photo receive a notification and can read your comments.
• To add more photos to a shared album, open the album and tap the Add (+) button. Use the resulting screen to select the photos you want to add, include commentary, and post the photos.
• To invite people to join a shared album, open the shared album. Tap the People tab at the bottom of the screen and then tap Invite People. Enter the email addresses of the people you want to invite and tap Add.
• You can configure various aspects of a shared album by opening it and tapping the People tab at the bottom of the screen. You can see the status of people you have invited, determine if the people with whom you are sharing the album can post to it, make the album a public website, determine if notifications are sent, or delete the shared album
• If you have Family Sharing set up (see Chapter 6, “Downloading Apps, Music, Movies, TV Shows, and More onto Your iPhone”), an album called Family is created automatically and shared with everyone in your sharing group automatically. Like other shared albums, you can add photos to this album to share them with your family group. Any photos added to it by the others in your group are shared with you, too.
Working with Photo Albums Shared with You
You can work with albums people share with you as follows:
Tap the notification you received, or tap the Shared source when you see a badge indicating you have activity.
Tap Accept for the shared album you want to join. The shared album becomes available on your Shared tab.
Tap Sharing.
Tap the new shared album.
Tap a photo in the album.
Tap Like to indicate you like the photo.
Tap Add a comment. (If you previously liked the photo, you see the number of likes for it instead; tap that number to add a comment.)
Type your comment.
Tap Send. Your comments are added to the album.
Tap the back button.
If allowed, tap the Add (+) button and post your own photos to the album you are sharing. This works just like posting to your own albums.
>>>Go Further: More on Photos Shared with You
When you share other people’s photos, keep the following points in mind:
• You can do most of the tasks with shared photos that you can with your own, such as emailing them, using them as wallpaper, and so on.
• To unsubscribe from an album, move to its People screen and tap Unsubscribe and confirm that is what you want to do. The shared album is removed from your iPhone.
• To see the activity associated with albums being shared with you, and those you are sharing, open the Activity Album on the iCloud Photo Sharing screen. You see new postings to the albums, when someone comments and so on.